An Easier Way to Manage Your To-Do's

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I love lists. I can't help it - I just do. Lists make me feel as if I'm making progress. They are my first step in taking any kind of action. The idea is no longer just rolling around in my head - its on a list, which makes it more concrete and doable, if only to me.

My lists range from sticky notes and scrap paper in my purse to a running list of random thoughts and ideas that I keep on my computer in Notepad. Its not sophisticated, but it ensures that I'll be able to access that brilliant idea later when I realize that I've forgotten what it was.

And I will forget. I always do. Not that I had the idea, just what the idea was. Its enough to drive you insane.

So, being the Queen of Lists, it occurred to me that there's probably some fabulous freebies out there on the web that can help me manage my lists better than the sticky notes and scrap paper.

I was right. There's tons. Here's my top 5 so far:

I love lists. I can't help it - I just do. Lists make me feel as if I'm making progress. They are my first step in taking any kind of action. The idea is no longer just rolling around in my head - its on a list, which makes it more concrete and doable, if only to me.

My lists range from sticky notes and scrap paper in my purse to a running list of random thoughts and ideas that I keep on my computer in Notepad. Its not sophisticated, but it ensures that I'll be able to access that brilliant idea later when I realize that I've forgotten what it was.

And I will forget. I always do. Not that I had the idea, just what the idea was. Its enough to drive you insane.

So, being the Queen of Lists, it occurred to me that there's probably some fabulous freebies out there on the web that can help me manage my lists better than the sticky notes and scrap paper.

I was right. There's tons. Here's my top 5 so far:

Remember The Milk
A wonderful alternative to sticky notes and dayplanners, Remember the Milk gives you all sorts of ways to organize and plan all of your to-do's. You can create as many lists as you want, make each one public or private and share with others if needed. Set due dates for your tasks, set tasks to repeat on a regular schedule and even create tags that show up in your "task cloud" - choose a tag from the cloud and see all the tasks related to that keyword.

Remember the Milk also allows you to see your list offline, set reminders that can be sent via email, IM or SMS and with the paid Pro version, you can sync with Windows Mobile.

Here's my sample list - made public for your enjoyment :)

43 Things
By now, just about everyone has heard of 43 Things but if you haven't (or just haven't figured out what to do with it) here's your chance.

While the other sites I've reviewed here are geared toward shopping lists and household chores, 43 Things is more of a "life's goals" to-do list, giving you the ability to track your goals, dreams and aspirations along with anything else you might like to add. Want to learn a foreign language? Add that here. Wish you knew how to juggle? You can add that here too. Can't think of any ways to challenge yourself? No problem... just browse what others are doing for inspiration.

You can also sync your 43 Things account to your blog so everytime you add a new to-do or update its status, you can post it to your blog as well.

You can see my 43 Things list here .

Ta-Da
From 37 Signals (who by the way has some other cool online tools) comes the Ta-da List. It has a user-friendly interface and can be shared with certain people or made public for all the Net to see.

You can check off items as you complete them so you'll always have a running list of what you've done so far.

You can see my Ta-da list here .

Bla-Bla List
Bla-Bla has a really simple interface but if you're looking for something to just manage your many to-do's, this is a great solution. You can share your lists with certain people or publish it for public viewing. You can see mine at http://blablalist.com/list/ivygirl/things_to_ponder and if you'd like to subscribe to the feed and discover other things I'm pondering, Bla-Bla has an RSS feature too.

Zoho
For those of you looking for something a bit more all-encompassing, Zoho's for you.

Zoho is kind of like an online day planner combined with a web conferencing feature combined with project management software combined with a Wiki, an online presentation tool and... well, you get the idea.

Using Zoho strictly to manage your grocery list is probably a waste of its capabilities but if you need something to help you manage, track, collaborate and create, then Zoho is definitely what you're looking for.

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